iPhone Rates

There’s been a lot of buzz in Canada over the recent announcement by Rogers that they finally have a deal worked out with Apple to officially bring the iPhone up here.

A fear that many have, including myself, is that Rogers’ data plans are going to continue to be terrible, or at best, not quite as bad as they used to be, but still pretty shitty.

But there is a glimmer of hope.

On May 27, the Government of Canada will be holding a wireless spectrum auction, where they will be selling off 105MHz of the 2GHz spectrum. Sixty percent of the wireless spectrum will be for all bidders, but the remaining 40% will be available only to new bidders, excluding the major wireless carriers Bell, Telus and Rogers. With that much of the spectrum available to this new carrier, they will effectively become the 4th national carrier.

The reason why Rogers’ data plans are so outrageously priced today is because they have no one else to worry about in the GSM network1 world in Canada2. A new wireless carrier that’s very likely to use GSM is going to actually give Rogers some competition.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s caused Rogers to jump the gun and make a good deal with Apple.

1: The type of cellular technology that Apple uses in the iPhone. [Wikipedia link] ↵

2: If anybody says that they’re a GSM carrier in Canada, they’re just buying minutes off of Rogers. ↵